Free practice 2: Coulthard quickest

Michelin-shod cars took five of the top six places, with Michael Schumacher's third-placed Ferrari the sole interloper. After his brush with the wall at the end of the first session, Schumacher was quickly on the pace at the start of the second hour, taking half a second off Barrichello's previous best. However, once the Michelin runners found their stride, headed by Ralf Schumacher's Williams, the championship leader was left battling to keep pace as the times tumbled.

Minor revisions to the circuit make it difficult to read too much into the times compared to last year, but considering that the track is still pretty 'green' it was surprising to see the cars going so fast. Montoya was the first driver into the 1m15s and although Coulthard eventually displaced the Colombian, the Williams' last lap contained two fastest sector times and the revised FW24 looks certain to be a factor this weekend.

Kimi Raikkonen and Ralf Schumacher both had a spell at the head of the times, but finished back in fourth and fifth. Just over 0.6s covered the top five. Mika Salo did a great job to end the day sixth for Toyota, but team-mate Allan McNish struggled and was back in 20th, over two seconds behind the Finn.

During the middle part of the session two of the quickest cars on track were the BARs of Olivier Panis and Jacques Villeneuve. At one stage they held second and fourth positions, but dropped back to seventh and ninth after late improvements. Nevertheless, the new car seems to have raised the team's overall competitiveness, although it's too early to draw any real conclusions.

After setting the pace in free practice one, Rubens Barrichello improved his time by just half a second, which meant he dropped to eighth. Heinz-Harald Frentzen completed the top 10 for Arrows after a much less eventful session for the German.

Renault was confident of a strong showing this weekend, but so far the team has yet to show any real potential. A mechanical failure ended Jarno Trulli's session early on and he had to watch as he slipped to 21st in the times. Jenson Button, who lost an engine on the morning, was in a Sauber sandwich in 15th place.